plasma 6 I arrive on February 28, but some users had to wait a little longer to enjoy it. I am using it for about two weeks, and my impressions could only be more positive if I hadn't experienced any errors. I'm not fighting with any serious ones, and overall I'm happy.
And even more so because of the new autonomy of my laptop. This is not new, that is, there is nothing, at least with a name and to highlight, that makes the battery last longer when going up to Plasma 6. But a notice does appear in the battery widget informing that there is available a energy profile that could help. This is what I have started using, and it is very worth it. As a note, the package that we will talk about later is also for Plasma 5.
Plasma 6 energy profiles
This is something that It is also available in GNOME, and I think by default, without installing anything. In Plasma... well I have doubts, why lie. I did not have the necessary package installed to see and be able to choose the power profile, and I did not install it until I saw that information in Plasma 6.
I knew it existed, but I refused to use it. The reason was that I didn't want to have to worry about it. On some occasion I had been working with the savings profile and I felt that everything was going in fits and starts, so I decided, badly, to make the operating system choose what to do in each case. By autonomy before and now, it seems that not using it is as if it were always at its maximum, in performance mode.
There are three profiles, and each one has its reason for being:
Energy saving
This is what to use if you want maximize autonomy. If you intend to do any minimally demanding job, and here we can include working with the web browser, we are going to feel a certain burden. But if we want to use a program that does not consume many resources, it is the option we should choose. In my case, the battery, which now has a health of just under 80%, is close to 5 hours, more or less the original one from when I bought it.
Balanced
It's what I use most now when I don't have my laptop connected to the mains. Autonomy has passed from a little over an hour when I was not wearing anything to more than three. It even allows me to use a virtual machine, a task that will reduce the time somewhat, of course, and I only notice less speed when performing other tasks, but nothing exaggerated. As the name suggests, there is a good balance.
Unlimited
Also as its name indicates, it is what to choose if we expect performance. In my case, the battery lasts a while, and that is why I avoid using it unless it is connected to a power outlet. This is how you have to go for your hardware.
Plasma 6 should consume less for the environment
KDE was proposed a long time ago respect the environment more, and if a piece of equipment consumes less and it takes longer to remove it or its battery, we will pollute less. Everybody wins. Therefore, it is possible that part of the improvement is related to this.
If you do not see the option to choose the energy profile, what you have to do is install the package power-profiles-daemon
from the official repositories and restart. You will see something like the header screenshot. If anyone is thinking that the image contradicts part of what was published in this article, since it shows that with 21% battery it would only last 36 minutes, which would give "only" three hours, look to the left: between the applications that I have open this Boxes, from GNOME; I am with Windows in the background trying to update the system.
The only bad thing is having to remember to set the profile you need at all times, although something can be configured from System Preferences, but if the autonomy improves so much, I think it's worth it.